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Canadian perspective here. The median wage of an electrician in Canada is CAD$30/hr (approx €20/hr or USD$22/hr).[1] Not great.

That requires a four to five year apprenticeship and the prospects for electricians in the near future is considered "very limited" in the province I live in (BC), which is among the nicest places to live and also the most expensive.[3] (And pays electricians lower than the national median.)

So IMO that hourly wage standard needs to go WAY up before it's considered tempting. Most electricians here work on new projects and there is great reluctance to increase the cost of construction projects (e.g. worker pay) any more than it has already jumped in the last few years.

[1] https://www.jobbank.gc.ca/marketreport/wages-occupation/2068...

[2] https://www.jobbank.gc.ca/outlookreport/occupation/20684

2 comments

I'm inclined to believe the job bank numbers here are incorrect, based on what it lists for software engineers, which seems a bit low: https://www.jobbank.gc.ca/marketreport/wages-occupation/5485...

Assuming 1880 hours per year (52 weeks * 40 hours - 120 vacation hours - 80 stat day hours), that would imply the median wage in BC is $99414

Levels reports a median pay in Vancouver (where I assume at least 60% of the software engineers in BC are) of $156K, and $130K in Victoria. While Levels may be off, I think real wages are somewhere in the middle.

Tech jobs in BC are notoriously low paid for the cost of living. The Job Bank website pulls from tax filing data so is going to be pretty reflective of real positions.

I was clearing $80k CAD as a mid level dev pre-covid, and that was considered on the higher end for a mid level dev. I switched to working for a US company during covid since no one in Vancouver could match the pay.

> The Job Bank website pulls from tax filing data so is going to be pretty reflective of real positions

The data here is completely survey-based, not based on tax filing.

    The primary source is Statistics Canada's Labour Force Survey.
    This survey is conducted using a sample of respondents and data may be suppressed for reasons of confidentiality or data quality, but it is the most inclusive, timely and unbiased source of wage data by occupational group.

    When the Labour Force Survey data is not available, other sources are considered, including:
    Employment and Social Development Canada program data such as Employment Insurance program survey data
    The Census
    Provincial and territorial surveys and administrative data
    Other organizations administrative data, such as the Canadian Institute for Health Information and the Canadian Medical Association
    Other sources when applicable
    First published in November 2022, Small Area Estimations developed by Statistics Canada were added as a new data source.

I stand corrected on the data source.

From 5 years of experience though, the stats can money seems right on, while the levels.io data seems VERY high.

> While Levels may be off, I think real wages are somewhere in the middle.

Vancouver has little in terms of venture capital but a lot of SWE thanks to offshoring and lax immigration policy. Canadian politicians even pitched Vancouver as an ideal HQ2 location to Amazon since tech workers are worth ~50K less than in America[0]

[0] https://www.vancouvereconomic.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02...

So if everybody is underpaid, and the bureaucrats says it's not their fault, how is new construction so expensive?

Good question. I think it must come down to - land costs (but I think you're not talking about that part) - expensive building materials - permitting and hookup costs - expensive building code requirements - maybe the industry isn't as efficient as it would like to think